


Bittersweet

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [51]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 21:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11135475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: As the years and months ticked down, they were acutely aware that every little domestic moment they shared as a couple, as a family, was so very precious.  They would ache for this easy mundanity when they were apart; River knew, because she felt it even now.  She felt every smile and every kiss and every laugh, every shared meal and shared glance.  Every story they told to Athena and every wild, rambling, hilariously wonderful toddler narrative she told them in turn.  She felt them all, both with pure happiness and with the desperate ache of dread.





	Bittersweet

**Author's Note:**

> Highly recommended listening for the first part of the chapter (you’ll know when):  
> https://youtu.be/upVSLgDBldk?t=24

[Darillium]

“What kind of cheese would you like in your toastie, Athena?”  Nardole called, buried in the refrigerator to his waist.

“Brie, please!” she chimed cheerfully from her high chair.

He popped his head out and raised an invisible eyebrow at River.  “You _quite_ sure she’s three years old?”

“Don’t look at me,” River smirked.

“And what’ll you have, Dr. Song?”

“Ah… fine, that one might be down to both of us,” she admitted.  “The same, thank you, Nardole.”

He chuckled as he pulled a round package out of the fridge.  “It’s not like the Doctor to miss lunch, what is he up to?”

“I think he’s doing his musical meditation thing,” River said.  He’d soundproofed the control room for that purpose after Athena came along, so he didn’t have to worry about disturbing her naptime.  “He certainly will be cranky if he misses it, though.  I’ll go have a look.”  

She stood from the worktop and paused to duck her head and kiss Athena’s cheek before she made her way to the linen cupboard.

The urgent, bittersweet strains of the first movement of _Winter_ from Vivaldi’s _Four Seasons_ echoed through the console room.  The electric guitar suited it surprisingly well.  The Doctor was standing with his back to the door, and River sat down quietly on the landing step to listen.  For once he didn’t seem to sense her there, completely engrossed in the complex melody.  

Gooseflesh rose on her arms and she gave a little involuntary shiver as he played.  She wondered what he was thinking, _if_ he was thinking, or if he was playing something so fast-paced and intricate to keep every other thought from his mind.  Even watching his back, the Doctor cut a striking figure: hunched over his guitar, his thin frame tense with focus; the sharp, controlled motion of his hand travelling up and down the frets just visible from her vantage point.  His wild wavy hair, grading from deep grey at his nape to pale silver and somewhat permanently dishevelled, only added to the impression of the ‘mad musician.’

The last note reverberated through the room and dissipated into silence.  The sudden quiet rang in her ears.  River saw the slight shift in his posture that meant he’d noticed her there, however it was that he did that without looking.  Funny, she’d never realised she could tell he was smiling from the back of his head.  She was smiling too when he turned to face her. 

“Hi,” she said, soft and raspy, and cleared her throat.  The Doctor grinned outright.

“See something you like, dear?” he asked, lifting the strap over his head and setting his guitar aside by the console.

“Preening doesn’t become you, honey,” she said, standing and stepping toward him.

“Liar,” he replied, his grin somehow managing to grow more smug as he slid his hands around her waist.

She meant to object, but that absurd, cocky smile was so close to her as he leaned into her space, but only just, waiting for her to close the distance.  She could smell his aftershave and the TARDIS lights were glinting in his eyes, and she idly thought that it had been entirely too long since he’d wrenched her trousers down and thrown her up on the console while she hastily kicked them off and wrapped her legs around his hips— 

Oh, right.  Cheese.  

“I’ve come to announce lunch,” River murmured, her eyelids lowering as her gaze fixed on his mouth.  “We’re having cheese toasties.”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that’s some sort of sexual metaphor,” the Doctor grumbled in reply, tilting his head to the side and leaning closer, his warm breath fanning over her cheek. 

“Sorry,” she sighed into his ear, and felt him shiver. 

“Tease,” he said, with his lips against her pulse point.

“Hypocrite,” she replied breathlessly, and raked her nails lightly over the back of his neck.

The Doctor hovered with his hands and his lips on her but their bodies just a breath apart, close enough to radiate warmth, but not touching.  River’s pulse pounded in her ears.

He finally gave a heavy sigh.  “They’re waiting, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said, letting out her own shaky breath.

“To be continued,” he growled into her ear, deep and promising, and slid one hand down from the small of her back to cup her arse, roughly yanking her closer.

River sucked in a breath and groaned, feeling him hard and straining against her through his trousers.  But before she knew it, he’d pressed a quick kiss to her cheek and released her, stepping aside and heading for the door.  

She took a wobbly step back and steadied herself with a hand on the console as she watched him go.  

The TARDIS made a faint hum.

“Shut up,” she grumbled.

___

As the years and months ticked down, they were acutely aware that every little domestic moment they shared as a couple, as a family, was so very precious.  They would ache for this easy mundanity when they were apart; River knew, because she felt it even now.  She felt every smile and every kiss and every laugh, every shared meal and shared glance.  Every story they told to Athena and every wild, rambling, hilariously wonderful toddler narrative she told them in turn.  She felt them all, both with pure happiness and with the desperate ache of dread.

Bittersweet.  That summed up their lives well, to date.  

After lunch, they all moved to the greenhouse in the back garden.  River took a deep breath of the warm, steamy air; the lush aroma of rich soil, greenery, and blossoming tropical flowers.  For her last birthday, the Doctor had surprised her with gardenias and jasmine, which, through some combination of genetic manipulation and environmental tweaks, he’d managed to coax into bloom.  They were blooming again now, and the air was heady with their sweet fragrance.  

It did her heart good to come out here.  The dark and cold would be enough to drive anyone mad after so many years, without having a little retreat like this.  Athena loved running through the centre aisle, flanked on both sides with overhanging foliage, and fancying she was adventuring through a jungle in search of some ancient temple, like they did in her bedtime stories.

She loved to help with the gardening too.  The Doctor had made her a toddler-sized sonic trowel last Christmas, and River was yet to let him live it down, more because it was such a sweet gesture than out of a desire to tease him.  Watching him and Athena together made her heart lurch with a mad, overpowering affection.  He was so wonderful with her.  He was just so damn wonderful, in general.

When they went around trimming the herbs and harvesting the vegetables, Athena always wanted to do the picking.  River held her so she could reach the raised planter beds while the Doctor instructed her on how to tell which tomatoes and aubergines were ripe.  

She was far quicker and more intellectually advanced than a human of her young age, and in the past year or so, had become comfortable enough with her basic toddler life functions that she turned all of her attention to the world around her.  She was ravenous to learn about absolutely anything.  So they tried to teach her a little bit of everything, while they still could.  She’d already started reading and basic maths, a little horticulture, a little music, a little kitchen science, a little wibbly-wobbly, itty bitty martial arts.  

Athena loved it all so much.  River desperately wished they could show her everything; watch her eyes light up on her first trip to the stars, see her discover for herself how much incredible beauty there was in the universe, and watch her grow and learn and become whoever she would become.

They had started two new diaries two years ago— well, not so much diaries as books of letters and photos and memories.  One for her parents, and one for Athena.  For Athena: recordings of the day; the little, happy moments they shared that they didn’t ever want to forget.  They wrote about how much they had wanted her for centuries before she came into their lives and made them so very happy.  How much they loved her and wished they could all stay together.  How they knew she would continue to grow into a wonderful, clever, strong, kind person, and that they were so very proud of her, and would miss her so very much until they were together again.

River wrote to Amy and Rory thanking them for taking Athena in, apologising that they couldn’t ask first, apologising that they couldn’t be there.  She told them about her life and the Doctor’s and their wonderful, impossible twenty-four years together.  How happy and loved she was.  How the Doctor was going to solve all of this.

The Doctor often wrote in Athena's book himself, as well as held River while she wrote and cried with her over the things they soon wouldn’t be able to tell their daughter face to face.  But with her parents’ book, he would usually just sit beside her when she wrote and give her little contributions to add in.  She suspected he felt too guilty for all that had happened to them, and perhaps too self-conscious that he was a new and different man with whom they might be displeased.  That was utter rubbish, of course.  River decided she’d talk to him about it, because they deserved to hear from him directly too.

___

She saw her chance later that night.  They’d put Athena to bed, returned to their room, and jumped on each other before the door had even fully shut.  They kissed frantically, stripping each other out of their clothes with hands shaking with need, before hot skin was finally pressed to hot skin and they were falling, an entangled mess of limbs and mouths, into the bed.

Eventually they spread out on their backs, side by side, exhausted and breathless and glowing with pleasure.  River considered how to broach the topic while her breathing slowed and the sweat dried on her skin.

“I added a letter to my parents’ book this afternoon,” she said, her voice coming out hoarse. 

The Doctor hummed acknowledgment and brushed a knuckle against her hip in a gesture of exhausted affection.

“Why don’t you ever write to them?” River asked, still staring at the ceiling, too languid and tired to move her head.

“Ah,” he said quietly, as if he’d been expecting the question, but paused anyway, seemingly gathering the energy and breath to speak.  “They’d rather hear from you, don’t you think?”

She really thought the opposite.  “I think they’d rather hear from us both,” she said aloud.

“After what happened… River, they were so close to deciding to hang it all up.  To choose their real lives on Earth over following me on my bloody-minded, dangerous, idiotic stumble through the universe.  But they came with me instead, and just like that, just from a bloody picnic in the bloody park, they were gone.  They lost everything." 

“It wasn’t your fault.  It was their choice.  And they didn’t lose everything, Doctor.  They have each other.” 

“They lost you.  Because of me.  Again." 

“I... wasn’t the priority.  I’m much older than them.  They knew I’d be alright.”

“That doesn’t matter, River, you’re—”

“Honey, we’ve been over this bit til we’re blue in the face, so many times,” she cut in, not wanting to get into how much or little her parents truly considered her their daughter.  “They don’t blame you.  Remember, Amy wrote you the afterword?  She must’ve known she couldn’t tell you about Athena.  But she told you they were happy.  They’ll want to hear from you.”

“But I’m _not_ me,” he said quietly.  “Not the one they know.  They might be able to tell, even in writing.”

Ah, two for two.  She knew her husband well.  “You _are_ you.  And they’ll love you.”

He scoffed.  “Amy and Rory are very special, but they’re human.  Humans have a hard time with the whole… thing.”

“You mean Clara had a hard time.”

He grimaced.  “Well, yeah.  I remember feeling pretty… shite, about that.”

River finally turned her head to the side to look at his face.  “Oh, darling.  I know this time was hard for you.  But there’s not a single damn thing I’d change about this you.   _Nothing.”_  

The rest of her body followed suit and wrapped instinctively around his, her arm over his chest and her leg over his hips and her face nuzzling into his neck.

“My scary-handsome genius,” she murmured, with her adoring grin hidden against his skin. 

He let out a reluctant breath of laughter and turned his head to kiss her hair.

“And your hearts are the same.  Too big and soft for their own good,” River added, sliding her hand to rest on his chest between them.

“Hmf,” he said gruffly.  “Well don’t tell anyone about that.”

She smiled.  “Let’s take a picture,” she said, moving her hand up over his neck and cheek.  “When they see us all together, they’ll know for sure that it’s you.”

“I imagine the fact I managed to settle down and have a kid will be as much of a shock to them as the regeneration,” he muttered.

“They’ll be thrilled for you.  They love you.”

 _“Us,"_ the Doctor corrected, squeezing her tight against him. 

 


End file.
